Universal Pictures picks up Neal Shusterman’s upcoming novel, Scythe, with plans to adapt the book to film.  

It’s been a pretty good week for Neal Shusterman fans, as not only did we get the casting announcement a couple of days ago for the movie adaptation of UnWind, the first of his dystology series, but now The Hollywood Reporter announces that Shusterman’s upcoming novel Scythe has been picked up by Universal to be adapted for film.

The movie will be produced by Scott Stuber, Dylan Clark, and Trevor Engelson.  Stuber and Clark will be producing under Bluegrass Films banner, while Senior VP Jay Ireland will oversee the production, along with Sara Scott for Universal.

Scythe is labeled as YA dystopian, but for myself, I label it as another potentially amazing series by a National Book Awards winner.  Here’s the description via Goodreads:

Two teens are forced to murder—maybe each other—in the first in a chilling new series from Neal Shusterman, author of theNew York Times bestselling Unwind dystology.

In a world where disease has been eliminated, the only way to die is to be randomly killed (“gleaned”) by professional reapers (“scythes”). Citra and Rowan are teenagers who have been selected to be scythe’s apprentices, and—despite wanting nothing to do with the vocation—they must learn the art of killing and come to understand the necessity of what they do.

Only one of them will be chosen as a scythe’s apprentice. And when it becomes clear that the winning apprentice’s first task will be to glean the loser, Citra and Rowan are pitted against one another in a fight for their lives.

This will be Universal’s first attempt in adapting a YA-labeled book since the 2009 movie Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant, which starred The Hunger Games‘ Josh Hutcherson.

Source: Hollywood Reporter